Alabama Coasting 2018 - Page 8

HISTORIC FORT GAINES
The war of 1812 proved that America
needed adequate defenses for its long
coastline. Construction of a fort on land
as part of a comprehensive system of
national defense began in 1821. Over
the next 20 years a series of problems
plagued the project, but construction
finally began in 1853. Congress named
the fort for General Edmund Pendleton
Gaines, whose military resume included
the capture, just north of Mobile, of
former Vice-President Aaron Burr who
had been accused of participating in
a conspiracy to commit treason. He
was promoted to the rank of Brigadier
General in the War of 1812 and earned
recognition for his tenacious defense
of Fort Erie, and following that, for the
next thirty-five years, earned the respect
of settlers and soldiers for his skill in
the Indian Wars and throughout the
southeast.
Ft Gaines, which was still unfinished,
was seized by the Alabama militia on
January 5, 1861 as the state seceded
from the United States. After the
state officially joined the Confederacy,
engineers completed the fort. Brigadier
General Richard L. Page, General Robert
E. Lee’s cousin and a former U.S. and
Confederate naval officer, took command
of Fort Morgan and all lower Mobile Bay
defenses in March 1864. Colonel Charles
Anderson led Fort Gaines’s 800-man
garrison, which included a battalion of
cadets aged twelve to sixteen from the
Pelham Military Academy in Mobile.
The Battle of Mobile Bay began on
August 3, 1864 when Major General
Fort Gaines postcard from 1960
8 ALABAMA COASTING’S DAUPHIN ISLAND LIFE
Arial view of Fort Gaines.
Gordon Granger landed with 1,500
Union soldiers on the west side of
Dauphin Island, seven miles from Fort
Gaines. Most of the story of the battle
revolves around Admiral David Farragut
and his famous “Damn the torpedos, full
speed ahead”. The garrison at Fort Gaines
proved to be very vulnerable to cannon
and sharpshooter attack from the land
and was forced to surrender after a short
siege. Fort Morgan lasted for another 20
days and the City of Mobile finally fell
on April 12, 1865, three days after Lee’s
surrender at Appomattox.
In 1898 the fort was further modified as a
result of the Spanish-American conflict.
The fort served in World War I with a
Coastal Artillery unit garrison manning
the disappearing guns. The site also
became an anti-aircraft gunnery school
during and following the war. World War
II saw the fort used as a camp site for
the Alabama National Guard and a base
for the U.S. Coast Guard stationed there
to operate against enemy submarines
prowling the gulf in search of merchant
vessels
The United States sold Fort Gaines to
the City of Mobile in 1926. The city in
turn gave the property to the Alabama
Department of Conservation, which
deeded it to the Dauphin Island Park
2018
and Beach Board. The fort is recognized
as one of the best preserved example
of Civil War era fortifications boasting
original cannon, the original kitchen
and blacksmith shops which are still
operational.